


when the sun came up you were looking at me

by thisismydesignn



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Compulsion, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Kissing, M/M, Memories, Multi, Oral Sex, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 10:12:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2504093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisismydesignn/pseuds/thisismydesignn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alaric agrees to take away Elena's memories of Damon. It doesn't go quite as smoothly as either of them had hoped. (Coda to 6.02 and 6.04).</p>
            </blockquote>





	when the sun came up you were looking at me

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies in advance for my excessive use of italics and the em dash. Title from Taylor Swift's "Out of the Woods."

“I want you to take away Damon. I want you to compel me to forget that I ever loved him.”  
  


* * *

  
Elena boxes up her old life, every memory of the two of them together, and it feels like the hardest thing she’s ever had to do— but the worst, she knows, is yet to come.  
  


* * *

  
Alaric needs a drink.

He’s not sure he can do this, not even sure he _wants_ to— but Elena needs him, and he’s never been able to tell her no.  
  


* * *

  
His hand on her knee, fingertips brushing her bare skin, he says, “I have some questions. Answer them honestly.”

“I will answer everything honestly,” she responds, and she will, he can _feel_ it, but he can feel her hesitation, her uncertainty, too. “Do you have doubts about this?” he asks, and she doesn’t pause to think. “Yes. But I know I have to do this.”

“Do you trust me to be…digging around in your mind?” he asks, because he has to be sure.

“I trust you completely,” and he’s struck by how much she _means_ it, stunned by her unwavering resolve— her belief in _him_ , of all people.

He only hopes ( _doesn’t believe for a second_ ) that he’s worthy of it.

“Who is Damon Salvatore?” and the question sparks something deep in his chest where his heart no longer beats; he shoves it aside, focuses on Elena’s voice, on the feel of her skin beneath his fingers. “He was my boyfriend. I loved him…and he died.”  
  


* * *

  
He asks about the first time they met, and as she answers, he can see it, can feel every emotion in dizzying, overwhelming detail. “There was something different about him. Dangerous. But not in a way that scared me. It was exciting.”

“And how did he make you feel?”

“Like anything was possible.”  
  
Alaric can feel that, too, the rush of exhilaration that courses through him with her words. He recognizes it well: it was the way he felt, once, before—

“You had a nice moment on the road with a stranger,” he tells— compels— her. “But that’s all he was: a stranger.” She repeats his words back to him, but this time there are tears in her eyes, shining on her cheeks. “Are you okay?” he can’t help but ask, and she takes a deep breath (instinct, reflex, even after all this time), steels herself, says, “Keep going.”

He does.  
  


* * *

  
He learns quickly that touching her helps— fingers on the back of her hand, against the soft skin of her thigh. It makes the connection more intense, the compulsion stronger, the erasure cleaner, and Elena seems almost grateful for the contact, wrapping her hands over his as though afraid he’ll pull away. Sometimes it’s too much— he can see why she needs this so badly, the strength of her emotions (her desire, her grief) nearly paralyzing as he picks them apart, takes them away.

“Tell me about this moment,” he says, watching her eyes fall shut as she remembers—

“He kissed me.” Such a simple statement to describe a moment so profoundly not. “I shouldn’t have let him,” and oh, Alaric knows how _that_ feels all too well. Remembers the first time he let Damon kiss _him_ , pressed into the couch at the boarding house, tongue tasting of bourbon and blood and everything Alaric had tried so hard not to want. The way Damon had smirked at him, after, unapologetic, hungry, leaving Ric no choice but to surge forward, kiss that smug expression off his face.

“He kissed you,” he repeats back to Elena. “You thought it was inappropriate. You told him so.”

It’s not the moment they’re looking for. He’s not surprised. (Hell, he fell in love with Damon long before either of them made the first move.)

“Why don’t we take a break?” he suggests, adds, “To be honest, I could use a drink.”

Elena half-smiles, agrees, stepping outside to call Caroline, or maybe Matt, while Ric— Ric turns to his desk, to his not-so-secret stash, drinks straight from the bottle and presses a hand to the front of his jeans, willing himself to forget what he’s seen, what he’s _felt_ , Elena’s desires twisted up impossibly with his own, but _this_ — he can’t compel this away, not this time.  
  


* * *

  
When she returns, he can’t quite look her in the eye; knows she can smell the booze on his breath, the arousal in the air, and yet, she’s not the one pulling away.

She sees his hesitation, his reluctance, and moves to stand at the window while he paces, restless. This time—

“It was the Miss Mystic Falls pageant. Damon stepped in. He took my arm and led me out with the rest of the girls and all their dates and…we danced.” Alaric stops, turns to her, because he can feel it, even before she says it. “I remember that was the first time that I felt it.” “Felt what?” but he knows, he _knows_.

“How sexy he was,” and it’s almost a question, the way her tone shifts, the way she turns back to face him, like she’s asking _is this okay, is this too much_ , when really, Ric should be asking the same.

“I’d never let myself notice until then,” she continues, uncertain, a rush of words she can’t seem to hold in. “I mean, obviously I knew that he was attractive, but— I didn’t want to see him that way.”

Alaric steps forward, meets her eyes, speaks the words that will change her mind, change _her_ , and all he can think of is how he watched the two of them dance, that day. Magnetic, the tension between them palpable and Jenna may have been at his side but still they were all he could see, his enemy and his student and it should have, _should have_ made him sick but he _wanted_ , still wants, but he can’t, not now, and—

“Who is Damon Salvatore?”

“He was my boyfriend. I loved him, and he died,” and once again Elena is turning away, frustration written across her face as she tells him, “Ric, I hate this,” and he can feel the agony in her veins as though it’s his own, and maybe it is, a bit. But he keeps pushing her, because they’ve come too far, because they can’t stop now.

She tells him about the night at the motel, and the way her voice hitches nearly makes him come undone. “I remember, when I was laying in bed with him, all I could think about was kissing him,” and Ric sees it, the moment she gave in to her desire, “I wanted to kiss him _so_ badly,” and he clenches his fingers into fists, looks her in the eye once more and tries to take it away, but he can’t, he _can’t_ , and his voice rises with his frustration. “Think about it, Elena! Think about that moment when you knew this person was somebody that you had feelings for. That you loved. That you could see those feelings going on forever. Trust me, you never forget.”

It’s too much at once, and she’s halfway to the door before she turns back, looks up at Ric, eyes filled with tears once more. Her hands are fists at her sides, her voice trembles, but her gaze is steady as she whispers, “Kiss me.”

Alaric’s across the room before he can stop to think, his hands in Elena’s hair, kissing her like he’s been desperate to all day. Her face tilted up to his, his tongue in her mouth, stubble rough against her cheeks, and still she clings to him, trying to get closer, whimpering her relief against his lips. He picks her up (never pulling away, and there’s something to this _not needing to breathe_ thing, he thinks) and in an instant she’s perched on the edge of his desk, thighs bracketing his hips as she reaches down to undo his jeans—

—and the brush of her hand across his bare stomach (the touch that’s tortured him all day, the contact that’s brought everything into painfully sharp focus) brings Alaric back to himself, the hunger evaporating with the clarity of Elena’s desperation.

He extracts himself from her touch, pulls back just out of reach, tries not to look at her mussed hair, her bruised lips. “Elena, we…we _can’t_ ,” and it’s the wrong thing to say but he’s not sure there _is_ a right thing, and just like that her desire flickers to anger, like flipping a switch.

She doesn’t argue, hisses a vicious “fuck you” as she pushes past him, but that connection between them hasn’t dulled yet: he can feel Elena’s grief, her rage, but it’s not directed at him— it’s directed at her, at her own weakness, at everything she’s tried so hard but can’t seem to forget.

He lets her go, and he calls Caroline.  
  


* * *

  
He finds Elena in a frenzy, anger seeping through as she tells him, “I don’t want to hear it, Ric, okay? We tried. It didn’t work. It’s over.” Of course she wants to get rid of him, but he can’t let her, not this time. “It didn’t work,” he responds, “because you weren’t being honest.”

She’s shocked, offended— everything he’d anticipated, and he shuts the door behind him as she scoffs, “I was being _completely_ honest. Do you think I _want_ to talk to you about my romantic life?”

He thinks about everything he’s wanted, everything he’s never told her, everything he’ll never admit and shoves it aside, because right now, “You weren’t being honest with yourself,” and that’s all that matters.

“Look,” he says, “I want to hear all the Damon stuff,” and that’s a lie, he doesn’t, because he has enough _Damon stuff_ of his own to last several lifetimes, a bottle of bourbon to mark every memory he wishes he could forget, “ _While_ you were still with Stefan.”

He braces himself for her wrath, for her insistence that she _never would have hurt him_ , but she doesn’t hear a word he says, until.

“Elena, you have been lucky enough to love two people this deeply in your young life. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s okay.”

It hurts like hell, the moment he can feel the shift— the moment she starts to believe him, like she’d been waiting for his validation all along. “It’s okay to love them both,” she says, and it’s a memory and a confession all at once. “That’s what Katherine used to say.” She turns back to Alaric with tearstained eyes and he has to keep himself from reaching out, from taking her in his arms, as much as he wants to. He takes a seat in front of her instead, watches those tears spill over, murmurs, “It’s okay, Elena. You can tell me.” (And maybe, he thinks, maybe he already knows. Maybe he’s known all along.) “Tell me the moment you knew you loved him.”

“It was my birthday,” and that’s it, that’s everything, the night Alaric had walked out, the night he’d always, _always_ wished he could take back. Elena tells him about Damon, about the necklace, “the most selfless that he’s ever been,” and he remembers, Elena in that white dress, drink in her hand, the desperation in Damon’s touch that night, “and in that moment, I loved him.”

This time, Alaric knows, she’s telling the truth; she knows it too, at last. “I didn’t want to. I mean, it terrified me, but…for that moment, I loved him,” and it feels final, feels _real_ in a way none of the other memories had.

Still he can’t do it, can’t move, watches her reach up to press a hand to her throat, remembering for one last time. “Do it,” she pleads, hand falling away to grip his own, twine her fingers around Alaric’s, reassure him that “it’s okay, I’m ready.”

“I need you to be sure,” he tells her, once more, because he isn’t, nowhere near _sure_ , so far from _ready_ , voice barely a whisper as he asks, “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” and there’s no room for argument in her voice even as it wavers, as her hands tremble around Alaric’s. “Just take it away, please.”

He looks into her eyes (tries not to look into himself), and for the first time he takes not only her memories of Damon but her memories of him, as well, of the moment he walked out— believing, somehow, that they were each better off on their own. “Damon never came into the room. He never gave you the necklace. The party was miserable, and we spent the rest of the night at the house, watching movies and eating popcorn with Jeremy.”

He feels it with an almost vicious intensity, the moment Elena remembers— what Damon did to Jeremy, how much she hated him for it. ( _Hates_ , he tells himself, thinks of how the past has become the present, how he’s no longer sure what’s off limits, feels Elena’s fingers untangle from his own, wonders—)

“Who is Damon Salvatore?”

She rolls her eyes, and the tears aren’t quite gone but her words are answer enough. “He’s Stefan’s brother. He’s a monster. And then he died.”

Alaric sits back, watching her with uncertain eyes. _Success, at last_ , but success has never felt quite so close to abject failure before.

Then Elena’s leaning forward, a smile like a question dancing across her lips as she wraps a hand around the back of his neck and pulls him in for a kiss, sensuous and far slower than their last attempt at intimate contact. _Was that only hours ago?_ Ric wonders, letting her get too close— thinks for only a moment, then lets himself forget, lost in her taste and her touch as she pulls him down to the bed with her, hooking a leg around his and whispering to him exactly what it is she wants.  
  


* * *

  
He holds her too tightly, fucks her like he’s trying to make up for something he’s done, and she would swear he’s blinking back tears as he turns away from her— she doesn’t know why, but Alaric flinches at her touch, the simple press of her palm to his shoulder blade, and she pulls away, hurt, confused. He turns back quickly, though, kisses her senseless, and she forgets to mind. Soon her thighs are burning from his stubble, her fingers tangled in the sheets, his hair, grinning as she comes down, pressing her lips to his shining mouth.

This isn’t the first time that they’ve done this, and it won’t be the last, Elena thinks; thinks back to the summer before she turned eighteen, movie nights with her head in Ric’s lap, his fingers combing absentmindedly through her hair, trailing daringly down her side, the times she’d look up at him, part her lips and almost, _almost_ ask—

—but something would stop her every time, a flicker in his gaze or the sound of Jeremy’s feet on the stairs, the two of them pulling apart too quickly, guilt weighing down each apologetic glance that fell just short.  
  
Until.

“We’re kind of fit for each other,” she’d told him, meant it, every word ( _I trust you completely_ ), remembers all too well that first night he’d spent in her bed instead of on the couch. Messy and imperfect and _human_ , and somehow it hadn’t felt like betrayal— more like inevitability, and she refused to let herself regret a moment of it.

It’s different now (more intense, and all the ways they’ve learned they fit together just right) but it’s still _them_ , and Elena tightens her grip around his waist, feels him smile, thinks— she’s lost so much, but she’s not going to let herself lose him again.  
  


* * *

  
He tries not to think about the _what if_ , the possibilities that will never come to pass, but it’s Mystic Falls, or close enough, and _never_ has never been a guarantee.

(What if Damon comes home? What if it didn’t work? What if it wasn’t worth the risk?) But he feels her arms tighten around him, smiles in spite of himself, thinks back to the way she’d asked, so sincere, _“If not for you, then who?”_

He pauses, just for a moment, just long enough to imagine a world where Damon has returned, where Elena’s memories remain intact, where everything that’s gone unspoken between them finally, _finally_ rises to the surface, and—

_(leaning down to kiss Elena over Damon’s shoulder, pressing his hips forward and grazing his teeth along Damon’s neck; his head between Elena’s legs, her moans muted against Damon’s mouth, their fingers intertwined across her stomach; Damon’s lips against his own, the lingering taste of bourbon and the curve of his smile drawing noises from Ric that he’ll later deny, Elena’s hands relentless as they stroke across his skin, and)_

He opens his eyes to find Elena looking up at him, a question in her gaze. “S’nothing,” he tells her, knows perfectly well she won’t believe him, but she just grins and presses her cheek to his chest. “Whatever you say, Ric.”

He’s missed this, he thinks— _that smile,_ an Elena whose eyes shine with laughter more than tears, and he runs his fingers through her hair, thinking aloud. “We should get some sleep.”

She murmurs her agreement, eyes already shut, and he shifts just enough to turn off the light, press his lips to her forehead and settle in.

_What if_ echoes through his mind one last time, barely a whisper, but Elena’s fingers slip into his like an anchor in the darkness and everything else fades to silence.  
  


* * *

  
It comes to pass too soon, Elena standing before him with crossed arms, her tone a twisted jumble of anger, confusion, hurt. “How could you obliterate an entire chapter of my life?”

“Look, Elena,” he says, arms full of the memories she’d boxed away, forced herself to forget, “as much as I would like to think that I’m full of wisdom, I think it’s time we stop pretending that I actually know what’s best, okay?” He hands her the diary, listens to her start to read aloud— _yes, you loved Damon_ — can’t quite meet her eyes as she glances up at him, sinks into her seat like she doesn’t trust her legs to hold her up anymore. “You loved him with a passion that consumed you,” and Alaric turns away to take a drink, because he _misses_ him, misses him more than he’s been able to admit to Elena, to Jeremy— hell, to himself.

“You’ve been given a chance to start over,” Elena reads, uncertain. “I want you to take it. I want you to be happy.”

“So,” Alaric asks, though he’s not sure he wants to hear her response. “What do you want me to do?”

She hesitates only a moment, gazing down at the journal in her hands— gets to her feet and hands it back to Alaric, _in case I ever need to read it again_ , and he doesn’t ask _are you sure_ , doesn’t need to, not this time.

Elena steps around Alaric’s desk, presses a hand to his chest ( _solid, real_ ), wraps her arms around him like she can’t help herself, like she doesn’t want to.

_I want you to be happy_ , she’d written.

She might not be there yet, but she tilts her face up to his— feels Alaric’s hands on her skin, kissing her deeply, not _starting over_ but no longer looking back— and something inside of her, someplace she hadn’t realized was empty, fills with warmth.

She’s not there yet, she thinks, but it’s a start.


End file.
